


Colors

by ffairyy



Category: GOT7
Genre: M/M, Some pining, a bunch of bad color references, artist!Youngjae, some minor angst but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 04:41:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8042944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ffairyy/pseuds/ffairyy
Summary: Prompt: Jaebum is ripped at every edge, but Youngjae thinks he is a masterpiece.or the one where Youngjae is an artist and Jaebum keeps requesting art from him.





	Colors

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Youngjae_fic_fest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Youngjae_fic_fest) collection. 



> This is my work for the Youngjae Fic Fest...
> 
> I wasn't completely sure about the prompt, because when I claimed it, it said "DNW: smut, drugs, character death" and then after I started writing I checked it again and all those things were listed under "Extra Points".  
> So I wasn't sure if smut, drugs, etc were welcome or not and went without those things...this is probably not what the prompter wanted, but I tried!! :P

  
  
**COLORS  
**

If there was anything Youngjae was really good at, it was finding colors in the midst of grey.  
Colors in dull parking garages and in abandoned office blocks, colors in boring math lessons and colors in the faces of people who painted themselves in black and white.  
  
If there was anything he believed in and if it was possible to really be sure of a thing, then for him it was the fact that colors existed everywhere if you just looked close enough.  
  
And through his whole life people kept asking him what his favorite color was and even at the age of six that question made no sense to him.  
  
How should he decide on just one color and stick with it?  
  
How could you even make the rude suggestion to compare all of these colors, when every single one was a whole own universe?   
  
Whenever people asked him that ridiculous, offending question, he answered, “all of them, I love all of them!”  
His sister had asked him rudely, “Every single one? Even booger-yellow?”  
“EVEN BOOGER YELLOW!”

It wasn’t a huge surprise to his parents that he became an artist. That he spent his time drawing and painting and filling white pages with colors.  
It had been like that all his life, but when his parents suggested for him to become an art student he knew he didn’t want that.  
He felt like art schools were the kind of place where people had a favorite color.  
So he started studying psychology instead and it was a happy surprise that the things he learned were more colorful than he had imagined.

♥

  
The day Youngjae met Jaebum was a rainy, cold spring day and Youngjae sat on the steps of his college building, safe from the rain and a bunch of drawing utensils on his lap. He listened to music and ignored the papers about Freud in his bag, even though he could feel the edge of his book pressing into his back.  
  
When a pair of legs came into sight and a dark shadow flew over his sketchbook.  
Youngjae looked up to see a young man with black hair and just as black eyes stare down on him. Probably his age.  
His jeans a dirty blue and the holes in them looking as if little bombs had exploded there, strings hanging from the edges.  
The worn out boots Youngjae looked down on were black as well, a matte black, where once must have been gloss. The guy chewed his gum and let Youngjae check him out with an attentive expression on his face.  
He sat down beside him without a word.  
  
“Are you here every break time?”  
  
“Most days, yeah…why?” Youngjae looked to his side, but the boy was busy chewing gum and just stared at the sketch on Youngjae’s lap. Youngjae gulped and resisted the urge to throw his hands over the paper.  
  
“Don’t you have friends?” the guy said. His voice was raspy. He mumbled a bit.  
  
“I… I know a few people, but I wouldn’t call them friends…” Youngjae stumbled over his words. What did the stranger want from him?  
  
“Friends are overrated anyway,” he said. “Can I ask you a favor?”  
Youngjae didn’t answer.

 Now the stranger looked at him for the first time. There was a spark of brown in his black eyes. Youngjae noticed the stubble around his jaw and the slightly dark circles under his eyes. A little red cut on his chin, crusted and barely visible, but nevertheless a spark of red in his face.  
  
“I want you to draw me,” the guy announced, “I’d pay you of course.”  
  
“Uhm… I don’t know.”  
  
Youngjae’s hands were sweating. The stranger didn’t smile or behave like someone who just requested a favor.  
  
“I…I don’t know,” Youngjae repeated, “I’ve never done this.”  
  
“It doesn’t have to be much, it doesn’t have to be realistic either, make it abstract, make it cartoony I don’t really care,” he rambled on and let his gum pop when he finished.  
  
“O-okay,” Youngjae sighed. “I mean, sure…Do-do you have a picture or anything of…yourself?”  
  
“Yeah, if you give me your e-mail address I can send them to you. You can think about the payment.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Youngjae’s hand was shaking a little when he wrote down his e-mail address and his name on a ripped out paper that the guy gave him.  
  
The guy looked at the paper and the hint of a smile appeared on his face.  
“I like the way you draw, Youngjae,” he said, while he stood up and then he added, “I’m Jaebum.”

♥

Youngjae had no idea why he agreed to this.  
He had things to do, had papers to write, had to study the mystics of the human mind, but instead he sat in front of his laptop, looking at a bunch of photos that the stranger Jaebum had sent him that evening and he did not know where to start.

He shook his head. Who just walks up to a stranger and asks to be drawn?  
How narcissistic could one be?  
But Youngjae could definitely use the money.  
And the photos were interesting to say the least.  
Not a single one of them in color; shades of black and white and grey tones in between, but no color.  
Youngjae sighed.  
He’d probably want a graphite drawing or a hyper realistic pencil drawing. That wasn’t Youngjae’s style.  
  
One photo was especially intriguing to him; he kept coming back to that one, while he tried to decide which one to take as inspiration.

It showed Jaebum in a leather jacket and ripped jeans, the same black hair, just a little longer, falling into his face and he was sitting in what looked like an empty swimming pool. It could have been the scene of a young adult movie from the nineties, maybe a scene from a road movie.  
Definitely lots of expression - just no color.

“Fuck it,” Youngjae sighed, “I’m gonna do this my way.”

♥

Two and a half hours later his work was done and his fingers and desk were full of sprinkles of color and while he washed his brushes he screwed his face up.  
The painting was not what that guy would like.  
The painting was nothing like the vibes Jaebum gave off. It was Youngjae all over and it hadn’t much to do with the feeling of the original picture.  
  
Now there were plants growing out of the swimming pool bottom and there were plants growing out of Jaebum and there were reds and purples in his eyes and there were little explosions of color on every single flower in his hair.  
It was corny, really.  
  
Nothing like that guy.

**♥**

Youngjae felt the presence of his painting in his bag all day. It was like a bit of extra weight on his back and he couldn’t wait to get it out of there.  
They agreed to meet in a small café near the college and when Youngjae finally sat there, slurping an iced Americano, Jaebum was nowhere to be seen.  
It was raining and the streets were empty, barely sunlight to be found.  
  
So he took out his pencil case and his sketchbook and started drawing a bouquet of flowers that stood on the table in front of his.  
  
About twenty minutes and three sketches later, Jaebum came rushing through the glass door. His clothes soaking wet and his black hair sticking to his forehead. Youngjae noticed that he was limping.  
A cold shiver ran down his spine when he saw the ripped hole in his shirt and the dried blood under it.  
  
“Hey!” Jaebum called out, “Sorry I’m late.”  
Youngjae stood up without thinking and stepped towards him, trying to help him sit down, but Jaebum gently brushed his hand off him.  
  
“It’s nothing,” he panted, “Just a little car accident.”  
  
“What?” Youngjae asked in shock. “What happened?”  
  
“Some idiot hit me off my bike and it was clearly green,” he said. “You should see my bike.”  
  
“Do you have his number?”  
  
“Sure.  He wanted to call the ambulance, but I said I had a date.” Jaebum winked at him with a mischievous smile on his face.

Youngjae felt the heat stream into his head.  
  
“A-are you sure you’re okay?”  
  
“I’m fine,” Jaebum repeated, “so… you already finished the thing? You’re really quick!”

Youngjae reached for his bag and his heart was racing when he took the little canvas out of it and looked at it again.

“I- I don’t know,” he said, “Maybe I should just….do it again.”  
  
Jaebum chuckled silently and before Youngjae knew what was happening he had the canvas in his hand and looked at it with a stern face, his glance flying over the painting. Youngjae felt his pulse in every inch of his body.  
  
“It’s… new,” Jaebum said after a few moments, which felt like an eternity. “No… this is definitely new.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I mean. You’re the first one to use color.”  
Jaebum was talking more to himself and Youngjae tried to look behind his concentrated face, searching for a reflection of anything inside him.  
  
“Do you…like it?” he heard himself ask.  
  
“Yeah…” Jaebum nodded, “it might be my favorite.”  
  
Before Youngjae could ask what he meant by that, Jaebum’s hand suddenly reached out for the tabletop to hold onto. He closed his eyes and his head looked like it suddenly was double its weight, because he had trouble keeping it up. He screwed his face up.  
  
“Are you okay?” Youngjae asked.  
  
“I’m kinda dizzy…” Jaebum brought out, leaning back against the backrest, his motions uncontrolled. He slumped into the chair heavily.  
  
“Oh god, okay…Try drinking something!”  
Youngjae held his coke in Jaebum’s direction and that one tried to smile while taking it, but his hand was shaking.  
  
Youngjae tried to keep calm, while he watched him take little sips from the cup.  
It looked ridiculously big in his shaky hand.  
  
“Should I call an ambulance?” Youngjae urged, “You should really get yourself checked!”  
  
“I’m-“ Jaebum tried, but had to take a deep breath before speaking, “I’m okay, I just need to lie down.”  
  
Youngjae thought for a moment and then he decided that his relationship with this guy couldn’t get any stranger if he tried, so he stood up and held his hand out for Jaebum to take.  
  
“My apartment is nearby. You can rest there!”

**♥**

  
Youngjae tried to study, he really did.  
But there was this stranger sleeping on his bed and he didn’t look as out of place in his room as he had expected. He looked like he had been there many times. Looking at it from the outside he could have been a good friend of Youngjae, who just liked to take naps in his room now and then.  
 But he wasn’t.  
He was a guy he met a few days ago and he should also probably be in a hospital right now.  
  
But he was a grown man and it was his decision after all.  
He just really distracted Youngjae from his work.  
The way he had fallen asleep immediately and how the dried blood on his blue jeans and the hole in his shirt made him look like an actual rough guy, but his closed eyes and calm breathing made him look weirdly vulnerable at the same time.  
Youngjae looked at him again. He wondered if he had any bandages or patches at home. Wondered if it would be weird to patch up his knee while he was asleep.  
It definitely would be. He still stood up to search his bathroom for the stuff.

When he came back into the room, Jaebum had sat up on his bed and stretched his arms. He grinned at Youngjae sheepishly.  
“How long have I been gone?”  
  
Youngjae walked over to his laptop to check the time.  
  
“Just about an hour,” he said, “feeling better?”  
  
“I feel like shit,” Jaebum said, “but I don’t feel like fainting anymore.”  
  
“Well that’s progress.”

Jaebum nodded and Youngjae prepared for an awkward silence, but then he remembered the little box in his hand.  
  
“Uhm,” he cleared his throat, “I have stuff for your injuries”  
  
“Thanks,” Jaebum smiled. And without protesting, he bent his leg a bit and started rolling up the fabric. The blood was dried, but there was a bit of dirt sticking to it. Youngjae cringed.  
The wound looked like one of those burning ones, lots of skin hanging off and acting up, but nothing serious.  
It would heal quickly. But Youngjae started to clean Jaebum’s skin with a bit of water and a tissue anyway.  
  
“It’s gonna sting a little…” he warned him, while he took off the cap of a little bottle of disinfection-spray.  
  
Jaebum’s leg jerked, when he applied it, but Jaebum smiled when Youngjae looked at him.  
Then Youngjae put a plaster over it, loosely, just to keep more dirt from getting in.

“Now pull up your shirt,” Youngjae said, ready to patch up his other wound, too. Jaebum just looked at him with a raised eyebrow and then he chuckled a bit.  
“You know what you want. I like that.”  
  
Youngjae felt himself turning red, the blush hot in his face.  
He didn’t say anything, because he didn’t know what to. But he could see Jaebum’s amusement.  
  
Youngjae was a bit clumsier, while he sprayed the liquid onto Jaebum’s naked waist, just a bit to the side.  He had a little tummy, but he could make out how toned his torso would be if he flexed and Youngjae tried not to think about that too much. His hands already weren’t doing their job without shaking awkwardly.  
When he had put the patch onto the cleaned wound Jaebum thanked him and rolled his shirt back down. Then he stood up pretty much immediately.  
  
“I should head home now,” he said, “thank you for the treatment, doc.”  
  
“Y-you’re welcome.”  
Youngjae nodded, still embarrassed. He led him to the door and they said goodbye and just when Youngjae wanted to close the door, Jaebum turned around again. He wanted to say something, but then he seemed to decide against it.  
  
Instead he just shook his head, then turned around, and rushed down the stairs.

♥

 

When Youngjae was alone again, he sank down on his bed, stared at the ceiling and listened to his own breathing for a while.  
  
Youngjae had gotten 35 dollars out of him for the painting- it was more than he had hoped for.  
He would buy a new sketchbook and a bunch of colored pencils for that. It was a good deal, it was a nice exchange.  
He stared at the few posters and pictures on his walls.  
A self portrait of Frida Kahlo directly over his little work desk and cutouts of quotes around it. A little bit of Disney, a little bit of Van Gogh. Lots of cartoonish artworks by his favorite independent artists and just a tiny little bit of Youngjae’s own words and artworks.  
He took a deep breath.  
 There was an itch in the back of his mind and a little whirlwind in his stomach when he thought about this guy.  
  
He took another deep breath and prepared to forget his name soon and to go on with his every day student life.  
But that was not what the universe had planned for him.  
  
♥

The next time he saw Jaebum, it was at college again. Youngjae was still not totally sure if Jaebum even went to that school. He looked so out of place between all the psychology students and the clean hallways and the books under people’s arms.  
But then again, Youngjae wasn’t sure if Jaebum looked in place anywhere.  
  
Youngjae sat on a bench in front of the building. The weather allowed him to study in a light jacket and a bunch of papers and a book on his lap. The fresh air tickled his face and tried to blow his paper away. He would have loved to watch them fly.  
  
Jaebum didn’t notice him. He leaned against the school wall and ate a sandwich. His pants ripped on the knees, boots that made his legs look a little skinnier than they were and a band-shirt, which Youngjae just couldn’t make out the logo of.

From far away… he looked pretty cool.  
Pretty badass and handsome, interesting in every way.  
Like he wanted people to look at him, but like he hated it when they got closer.  
Like he didn’t want to be there and like he’d maybe ignore you if you tried speaking to him. It was interesting.  
 Rings on his fingers, piercings in his ears and over all, as if there were a lot of colors locked up behind that presence. Wanting to break out, but not quite able to.

Youngjae took his sketchbook out.  
Just a quick sketch, just a few strokes of pencil on paper, just a tiny doodle of his pose- but then Jaebum wasn’t alone anymore and there was this girl with him that Youngjae kind of knew, but not really and he watched as Jaebum kissed her on the cheek, took her bag and walked off with her.  
  
Youngjae closed his sketchbook again.  
He had to study anyway.  
  
  
♥

When he sat in front of his laptop that night, Youngjae’s finger hovered over the send button of a new e-mail.  
He had scanned the painting for Jaebum and he wanted to send it to him.  
It was just polite and who knew what he could use it for.  
  
>Hey. Thought you’d like the scanned version, too. Oh…and I saw you at college today!<

It took him five minutes to finally drag himself away from the screen and to not wait for the answer. It wasn’t that important. Their little deal was done; he might as well delete his address.  
But he forgot to and went to bed.

♥

The next morning was a Saturday. It was past eleven when Youngjae’s stomach told him to make breakfast, but instead he found himself drawing at the kitchen table.  
Youngjae wanted to eat. Really!  
But the cornflakes in his bowl were already soggy and soaked with milk while he drew that sketch that he should have done right there and then, when Jaebum was leaning against that dirty wall with his sandwich and his mysterious band shirt.  
  
 In his doodle there were little leaf-creatures sitting on his shoulders and a few plants grew out of the wall and grew rank around his curves, a little bit of dried blood on his knees, a few plasters on his arms.

Youngjae smiled, when he colored it in shades of red and purple and green and a little bit of yellow light.  
 Jaebum would hate that drawing.  
 It was way too alive.  
  
And there was a mail from Jaebum waiting in his inbox.  
Youngjae chose to ignore the little rush of excitement in his veins, when he opened it.  
  
>yeah my girlfriend goes to your school. forces me to pick her up sometimes.  
thanks for the scan.<

Youngjae closed his sketchbook.  
He imagined hearing the drawing in it laugh at him.  
  
  
♥

The next e-mail from Jaebum came a week later.  
Youngjae’s sketchbook was a few doodles richer, most of them showing the boy with the black clothes and even blacker hair.  
It was about aesthetic and about inspiration and a little bit about finding colors in someone who wanted to be seen in black and white.  
Youngjae opened his arms for any kind of inspiration that came towards him.  
If inspiration came in form of a narcissistic boy who wore ripped jeans and got hit by cars now and then, it was okay. Youngjae’s pencils didn’t judge.  
He didn’t draw his girlfriend though; that would’ve been weird.  
  
When he opened the e-mail, his heart was pounding.

>I want you to draw for me again!<

  
**♥  
  
  
** He sat in a fast food restaurant with Mark and Wheein and Byulyi and he told them about Jaebum for the first time.

“So you draw for him?” Mark munched on a few fries and Youngjae looked up from his burger.  
  
“Yeah, he pays me to draw for him.”  
  
“What a weirdo.” Byul shook her head.  
  
“Is he cute?” Wheein wanted to know, before she sneakily stole a handful of fries from Byul.  
  
“Not cute… more like…handsome….”  
  
Byul and Wheein shared a meaningful glance and Youngjae watched them.  
  
“He’s not a bad boy, is he?” Wheein took a sip from her drink.  
  
“I… I don’t know.” Youngjae’s face felt hot and he had to force himself not to giggle like a little schoolboy with a crush.  
  
He wanted to tell them that he’s the coolest guy he’s ever met and that he wanted to find out everything about him and that he was indeed cute but that Youngjae would never say that because it would hurt Jaebum’s pride… but his heart was pounding a little too fast and his hands were a little too sweaty.  
“He’s just a friend.”  
  
“As soon as he asks you to draw nudes, you’re outta there!” Byul said, “I don’t want you hanging out with a weirdo.”

Mark laughed so hard, he nearly choked on his fries, but Byul looked at him determined and Wheein nodded agreeing.  
  
“It-“ Youngjae sighed. “It’s really not like that!”

**♥  
  
**  
  
Youngjae had met people in different places, in different situations, through different circumstances, but his friendship with Jaebum was by far the weirdest one. Youngjae called him a friend in his head, but really he didn’t even know his birthday.  
Sometimes he told Mark or Yugyeom about him, but Jaebum still felt like a little separated island in Youngjae’s life that started to become more and more intriguing.

Jaebum kept requesting art from him and Youngjae kept drawing and painting.  
Jaebum sent him pictures and Youngjae delivered his work a few days later.  
They mostly met up in Youngjae’s school or the small café near it and their little meetings took a little longer each time.  
They talked about random things. Youngjae found out that Jaebum didn’t have a job and it didn’t surprise him a bit. He didn’t ask where he took all the money for the pictures from.

The seventh drawing Jaebum requested was a drawing of a cat. Youngjae couldn’t draw animals very well, but like the first time Jaebum insisted that it didn’t matter.  
  
“Make it abstract or cartoony then.”  
  
So he made it cartoony, markers and gel pencils, an elegant grey cat sleeping on a windowsill and bathing in the last beam of sunlight, half drunk coffee on her one side, half written letters on the other, no sign of her human, but in the most peaceful way.  
Jaebum had told him to “deliver” it directly to his apartment and had given him an address close to the city center.  
It wasn’t far from his college and Youngjae knew this part of town. For some reason he had assumed that Jaebum lived somewhere in the suburbs, where the wealthy people lived.  
  
Youngjae suggested that he’d come over on Friday after college and during the whole day he couldn’t sit still in class. He spent the hours imagining what his apartment would look like and if he was one of those lucky people that owned more than one floor and maybe even a roof terrace?  
  
As soon as his last class ended he rushed out of the building and took the next bus. It was only a station away but he didn’t want to lose time. He wanted to spend the whole afternoon with Jaebum if somehow possible.

When he stood in front of a grey apartment block, he had to check the address twice before he decided that he should ring the bell. This was not what he had imagined.  
A buzzing sound ripped him out of his thoughts and his heart raced when he pushed the door open and he didn’t have time to collect himself, because Jaebum stuck his head through the door on the first floor and smiled a lazy smile.  
  
“You’re early,” he stated and Youngjae nodded while he entered the flat.  
It was small. Not as tiny as Youngjae’s flat, but not much bigger.  
And it was darker; the window shades were down and the lights were on, but they barely helped.  
Youngjae stood in a small space between rooms where he awkwardly took off his shoes and then followed Jaebum into his living room where some rock music was playing from a pair of speakers.  
  
“Did you hurry to see me?” Jaebum asked and Youngjae felt the humiliation in his bones.  
  
“No…” he lied, “I left college earlier and went to eat something…”  
  
“Ah, I see...” Jaebum hummed, but Youngjae was sure he didn’t believe a word.  
  
“Wanna show me your painting?”  
 Jaebum let himself sink into the couch and Youngjae did the same.  
He had his backpack on his lap and took his time taking the painting out.  
  
“I’m not very good with markers…” he said, but Jaebum shook his head.  
  
“You really need to learn how to promote yourself better,” he scolded, “who’s gonna buy your paintings if you keep talking down on them?”  
  
“I was hoping you would,” Youngjae mumbled.  
  
“I can’t be your only customer forever, right?” Jaebum’s smile got softer.  
  
Youngjae nodded again and then he showed him the drawing of the cat.  
  
Jaebum took his time looking at it and then he looked Youngjae in the eyes.  
  
“It’s perfect,” he said. “Even better than I imagined!”  
  
Youngjae took the validation and stored it in a secret little part of his heart, just in case he would need it later. He could never be sure if he saw Jaebum another time or if that one would suddenly decide he’d had enough of his paintings. Youngjae listened to all of Jaebum’s words as if they were a rare treasure that needed to be savored.  
  
 But there was more. There were butterflies in his stomach, when he shied away from Jaebum’s curious glance.  
While Jaebum looked at the painting a little longer, Youngjae’s glimpse fell through the open door to Jaebum’s bedroom and all he could see was the end of a big bed and a red blouse carelessly thrown over the bed frame.  
Youngjae gulped.  
 Right.  
There was no way Jaebum wore that blouse and Youngjae didn’t know why it surprised him to see something like that in his apartment.  
He had a girlfriend after all.  
Of course she’d leave her stuff there if they had been together for a while.  
  
“I know you just ate”, Jaebum’s voice tore him out of his thoughts, “but would you like to help me cook something?”  
  
Youngjae was glad his stomach didn’t start growling at the thought, because he hadn’t even eaten breakfast that day.  
  
“Yeah, sure,” he said and Jaebum smiled while he stood up.  
  
“I was thinking spaghetti?”  
  
  
♥  
  
  
Youngjae should’ve just gone home when he had had the chance. Now he sat at Jaebum’s tiny round kitchen table and did his best to help by cutting the tomatoes, but his glance always fell back to Jaebum.  
He looked so professional.  
Like he knew exactly what he was doing and the way he worked showed Youngjae that it was a routine.  
It was such a weird experience to see him cook with so much passion. Drying his hands on his ripped black jeans now and then and the sleeves of his even blacker System of a Down sweater rolled up to his elbows, so he wouldn’t get them dirty.  
Youngjae had to force himself to concentrate on his own task.  
  
And it wasn’t just a show.  
The spaghetti tasted incredible. Youngjae had never been to Italy, but he suddenly missed it and wondered what it would be like to go on vacation with Jaebum.  
 Just the two of them.

  
It was on that day, in the tiny kitchen, while watching Jaebum eating noodles and talking about some concert he went to, that Youngjae understood just how bad he had it for him.  
That maybe his crush had been there from the very first moment he met him and that maybe he was already in too deep to back off again.  
  
All he would have to do was to say no to the next commission.  To tell him that he was too stressed with college and that he wouldn’t find the time to paint for him anymore.  
Youngjae knew that would be all it takes. It was all that brought them back together every time and Youngjae was pretty sure that Jaebum wouldn’t ask to meet up otherwise.  
But he also knew that he wasn’t strong enough to just let Jaebum step out of his life again, just as simply as he had come in.  
  
He wanted to spend all of his time with him. Wanted to get to know him better and wanted Jaebum to want the same.  
And most of all he wanted his shirt to lie on Jaebum’s bed when you looked into his room.

  
♥   
  
  
Jaebum became a consistent part of Youngjae’s life.  
He found himself getting ready to meet up with Jaebum three to four days a week, caught himself picking out his favorite special-occasion-perfume for every single time they met and even sat down to clean his dirty shoes once.  
Not that Jaebum would be in the position to judge.  
  
He did not want to use the word unrequited love, but whatever it was that kept him up at night- he feared it would break him apart at some point.  
But it also made him more creative than ever.

He found himself drawing, sketching, painting, wherever he was.

The next time he talked to Mark about it, it wasn’t as carefree as the first time. Youngjae had a serious problem that needed serious treatment.  
  
Mark sat on Youngjae’s bed like he had so many times before. And he held Youngjae’s sketchbook in his hands and looked through it, humming now and then.  
Mark was the only person on earth who would ever be allowed to do that. This time Youngjae had basically shoved the book into his face and told him to look at it.  
  
Youngjae used to have no problem with people looking through his sketchbooks, but now all they would see were various sketches of Jaebum, in different styles, different colors, different positions, sometimes with Youngjae on his side but mostly on his own. There was something about Jaebum that made him look good on his own- as if it was more natural for him to be alone.  
As if he was made to take up all the space on the paper himself and as if every additional character on the page would just disturb his own little world.  
  
Whenever he drew himself with him, he drew them kissing, drew them holding hands, drew Jaebum with his band shirts and sometimes without them.  
  
And it was cliché, really. There were nights, when he couldn’t fall asleep, because he wondered how it would be to feel Jaebum’s lips on his own or to have his raspy morning voice in his ears. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Jaebum. Whenever he desperately tried to concentrate on his school papers, he caught himself wondering how he tasted. How his hands would feel on his skin.  
  
“Shit.” Mark brought him back to reality.  
  
“That’s all you’re gonna say?” Youngjae whined.  
  
“I mean… shit, you’ve got it bad…” Mark sighed and closed the sketchbook, “but at least you really improved your drawing skills, didn’t you?”  
  
“This is not the time for jokes!”  
  
“Sorry. Mhh, let me see. You have a crush on this guy, who is probably straight and also currently in a relationship… I say, don’t hurt yourself and let him go.”  
  
“I preferred ‘shit’ to be honest.” Youngjae let himself fall onto the bed next to Mark.  
  
“But seriously, why do you always fall in love with people you have no chance with? First that Jackson guy and now Jaebum?”  
  
“I don’t do it on purpose!” Youngjae slapped Mark’s side, maybe a little too hard.  
  
“Okay. How about we go on a date then?” Mark said. “A friend- date, y’know?”  
  
Youngjae grunted and pulled the pillow over his head.  
“But what’s the pooooint?”  
  
“The point is… you will see other people and remember that some of them are really hot. And there’s also that movie I wanted to see...”  
  
Youngjae sat up on his bed and looked at Mark in disbelief for a moment.  
  
“You literally are as sensible as a loaf of bread.”  
  
♥  
  
Youngjae regretted it already when they arrived at the cinema.  
He felt like there was a huge sign over his head that said ‘miserable’, because that’s how he felt and whenever one of the ‘hot people’ looked at him, he imagined seeing pity in their eyes.  
Mark told him he was just being dramatic again.  
  
He felt a little better when he had his popcorn and his drink and he looked forward to sit in a dark room for two hours and stare at moving pictures, so maybe it wasn’t that bad.  
Until he spotted Jaebum. Three rows before them.  
And he sat there alone.  
But surely his girlfriend was just in the bathroom, refreshing her makeup. Or maybe she was getting extra large bag of popcorn for the two of them.  
Youngjae sat down beside Mark and tugged on his sleeve. Then he pointed in Jaebum’s direction  
  
“That’s him…” he hissed.  
  
“Jaebum?” Mark said, “Seriously?”  
  
“Yes and don’t be so loud!”  
  
“Is he here with his girlfriend?” Mark asked.  
  
“Probably.” Youngjae sighed and sank a little deeper into his seat.  
  
Twenty minutes later, when the movie had started, Jaebum was still alone and the seats beside him were filled with people, but he interacted with none of them.  
Was he really alone there?  
  
Youngjae’s heart was racing and he wasn’t sure why.  
Maybe because it was weirdly charming that Jaebum went to see movies on his own. Maybe because they were at the same cinema and that could or could not be a sign. Maybe his heart was just racing, because of the loud noises of the action scene in the movie that he wasn’t watching.  
He watched Jaebum’s back. There was a weird expectation in his gut for Jaebum to turn around, as if he could feel that Youngjae was there. But he didn’t.  
  
The movie ended just like that, two hours later and Youngjae was glad Mark didn’t want to talk about the plot, because he would have had to improvise his answers here and there.  
Youngjae decided to go over to Jaebum on the way out. It was completely normal to do so. Why not?

“Hey!” he said and tapped Jaebum on the shoulder, when he walked past them.

“Youngjae! Have you been in the same movie?”  
  
“Yeah,” he said and then added, “this is Mark.”  
  
They awkwardly greeted each other and Youngjae started to regret all of his life decisions.  
  
“Aren’t you here with your girlfriend?” Youngjae heard himself ask.  
Jaebum lit a cigarette, when they walked out into the night.  
  
“Nah...” he mumbled, “We broke up yesterday.”  
  
“Oh really?” Youngjae said a little too eagerly and Mark looked at him, as if he wanted to say ‘and I’m the insensible one, huh?’.  
  
“Yeah. It wasn’t serious anyway…” he said and Youngjae couldn’t tell if he really didn’t care about it or if he was really good at keeping a strong mask on.  
  
“Sorry man…” Mark said anyway.  
  
“It’s okay,” Jaebum said and turned to Youngjae, “it’s good that I’m meeting you, though. I really want you to draw something for me.”

  
♥  
  
They mostly spent time in Youngjae’s tiny flat. After weeks and weeks Jaebum knew every corner of it, not that there were many.  
Not that he ever stayed for long.  
  
Jaebum had made tea and Youngjae sat at his working desk and tried to work on an essay that he had abandoned for too long- now the deadline was waiting for him like a crocodile that hadn’t been fed in months.  
 He tried to concentrate on it, had his books and research material spread out on his bed and rolled his chair through the room whenever he needed to look something up.  
He wasn’t used to Jaebum’s presence yet.  
 Wasn’t used to spending so much time with someone who gave him this amount of lethal butterflies, which were determined to distract him from important things. He wondered if those things were something he could ever get used to.  
  
Jaebum had a book with him- an autobiography of some filmmaker. It honestly didn’t interest Youngjae at all, but it was interesting to watch Jaebum be so caught up in it, sitting on the floor in Youngjae’s room and leaning onto his bed frame,  his tea in one hand, the book in the other and his eyes narrowed in concentration. Youngjae’s fingers itched to draw this scene. The sketch already formed in his mind.  
  
And Jaebum didn’t look calm, didn’t look as relaxed as you’d expect someone sitting comfortably with a cup of tea to look like. He looked as serious as ever.  
Somewhat troubled.  
  
Youngjae looked at him and heard his high school art teacher’s voice in his mind say,  
  
“The light falling in through the window makes for an especially nostalgic atmosphere, the concentrated look on his face shows us that he is only in the room physically, but that his mind is far gone in the universe of his mind.   
Do you see how warm the colors are in this painting? What do those colors tell us about the scene and about him as a character? Why is there such a great contrast between the warm colors in the room and the hard tension in his body language? The concentration? The sadness?”  
  
The sadness.  
How could he not have seen it? While he looked at Jaebum through the eyes of an analyst, he could see the sadness pouring out of his every pore and he was nearly amused by how blinded he had been and by how the butterflies made him overlook this detail.  
This important, important detail!  
  
Back in high school Youngjae would have had to write an essay about that, about the psychological meanings of color and how it impacted this image, about the things that the character Jaebum might be thinking of and about the hints on his back-story that he could find in the details in the picture.  
But no matter how long he kept looking at Jaebum- who didn’t even seem to remember that Youngjae was there with him- he just couldn’t make out the meaning of the scene. He wouldn’t have been able to write a single sentence about Jaebum, because he couldn’t see the details. He didn’t know his background story and so far he hadn’t looked beyond what Jaebum could possibly give him.  
It was pathetic how he had painted Jaebum in all those bright colors and how stubbornly he had ignored all the dark ones, as if they hadn’t been there from the very first day he met him.

♥  


There’s this phenomenon, that when you realize something about a person or think you found out something new about them, you cannot un-see it.

It will be in everything they do and in everything they say and it will feel as if something has changed drastically, even though it is still the same person you’re dealing with.  
  
That’s the way Youngjae saw Jaebum since that day in his room. Now the sadness was in everything he did.  
 It was so loud in everything he said and even louder in the things he didn’t say. It was so incredibly present that the air felt heavy with it sometimes. Youngjae was amazed at how he had been able to ignore that.  How he had blinded it out.  
Why? Did he just not want to see it? Was it inconvenient? Or did he just hope it would go away if he acted like it wasn’t there?

Whatever it was, it made him feel bad. Guilty and frustrated.  
And he couldn’t help it, but it changed how he was around Jaebum, it changed how they talked and didn’t talk and it even changed the way their kisses felt in Youngjae’s imagination.  
It changed the way the sketches of him looked.  
They looked heavier.  
His big boots started to look like they weighed Jaebum down. But Youngjae feared that it wasn’t just the boots.  
  
It changed everything for Youngjae, even though nothing had changed.  
He was the same Jaebum that had asked him for that portrait full of confidence and the same Jaebum that had gone to see a movie all by himself.  
  
Maybe it was the bitter realization that he didn’t know a thing about the boy he was falling in love with, about the boy he missed when he wasn’t around and the boy he thought about in class, when he should be paying attention.  
 All those drawings of Jaebum in his sketchbooks seemed more like those of a fictional character, an idolized version of him, than anything else now.  
Maybe he was ashamed because he had accepted Jaebum’s attention and his presence so naturally, but had ignored his sadness at the same time. As if he was good enough to be loved but not to be known.  
Youngjae didn’t want that. He didn’t want Jaebum to feel like he was just a lucky convenience or a good way to kill some time.  
  
 Jaebum wasn’t just some nice little pastime for Youngjae, but he wasn’t sure if he knew.  
He really wanted to tell Jaebum what he was for him and what their friendship- no matter how much Youngjae wanted it to be more than that- meant to him.  
  
But he hadn’t found words for it yet.  
  
  
♥

The first time Youngjae should get to visit Jaebum’s parent’s house was when he invited him to a house party. A friend of Jaebum celebrated his 25th birthday there.  
He secretly had hoped seeing his home for the first time would be more personal and more special. He personally had hoped for Jaebum to show him everything and for them to share this experience alone, just the two of them.  
Maybe he could have told him some childhood stories.  
 But Youngjae didn’t dare to complain. Didn’t want to be whiny about it.  
  
“You can bring friends if you want to,” Jaebum had said.  
  
The studying was done and Youngjae had lots of free time and it didn’t rain as much anymore.  And if it rained it was warm and sometimes sunny with a chance of rainbow.  
  
And when Mark and Yugyeom were walking the streets from the bus to Jaebum’s house, they were drinking beer and laughing about anything and everything. The sun was not yet ready to make space for the moon and the streets were painted in a warm orange. It was still warm and Youngjae had his plaid shirt wrapped around his hip, the wind bringing goose bumps to his arms.  
  
“Fuck, I just imagined Mark or you in my dance lessons.” Yugyeom laughed and earned one or two offended glances. He was balancing on the curbside of the street.  
  
“Hah-hah, I wanna see you study English or Psychology,” Youngjae said and gave Yugyeom a little slap that nearly made him lose his balance.  
  
“Fair enough.” Yugyeom chuckled. “I’m really curious about that Jaebum guy,” he added.  
  
“I have no idea why he invited me,” Youngjae said.  
  
“Why wouldn’t he?” Mark said, before he took another sip of his beer. “You’re basically a couple!”  
  
_A couple._  
Youngjae didn’t know what to do with those words, but they sure made the wind on his skin feel a little less cold.

  
♥

The house was one of many in a suburban street and it was huge and painted in a peachy color with a terrace on the first floor and a backyard that would’ve been big enough for another house.  
It made so much sense that a guy who bought paintings as a hobby would have grown up there.

But it also made sense that the guy with dirty shoes and ripped jeans and the sadness pouring out of him would rather live in a little dark flat on his own.  
  
The party was already going strong when they arrived.  
Jaebum greeted them and told them to have fun and then he went back to discussing some rock band with a guy that looked at least five years older than Youngjae.  
  
His friends had called the girls and Wheein and Byulyi arrived half an hour later and sat with them in that house of strangers, on the floor in front of the couch, where Youngjae and Mark were pressed against a couple making out next to them. When Mark looked at Youngjae, there was terror in his eyes.  
Yugyeom and the girls laughed a lot and drank a lot and talked a lot of shit. Youngjae drank too much beer without really enjoying it. It was better than having to join the conversation.

“All I’m saying is that Chris Brown is a douche bag after all,” Byulyi said.  
  
“I really just like his music,” Yugyeom defended himself. “It’s good dance music.”  
  
“Yeah, but he’s still an asshole,” Wheein said.  
  
“We should start a band, baby.” Byulyi giggled and leaned onto Wheein’s side. Youngjae watched her blushing.  
  
“We should,” Wheein said, “Can you play an instrument?”  
  
“Not a single one.” Byulyi grinned and stole the bottle out of Wheein’s hand, to take a sip from it. Wheein didn’t seem to mind, she just watched her friend with glassy eyes.  
  
“Me neither.” She sighed. “Let’s make it a capella then.”

 **  
** The downside of drinking that much beer was that Youngjae’s bladder was about to burst and even though his drunken mind told him it would be alright, he knew he couldn’t trust that one.  
So when he stood up, he was wobbly on his feet and he didn’t know where the toilet was.  
Jaebum was nowhere to be found, he was probably busy talking to other friends.  
Better friends.  
  
But Youngjae didn’t have it in him to care, as long as his bladder felt like that.  
He assumed that the bathroom had to be either upstairs or downstairs and his drunken self was incredibly proud of that conclusion, even though his sober self would’ve argued that there only were two floors.  
  
He found a bathroom after only four minutes of asking people and having trouble to get his words matching his thoughts. But luck wasn’t on his side that evening, so when he tried to open the door, all he got were muffled curses and then giggling and then panting and moaning and he understood that whoever was inside of there didn’t plan to get out anytime soon.  
  
So he went upstairs, where there were no people and where the music was only a background noise that sounded far away. It wasn’t hard to make out which door he needed to open, because there was a huge metallic >Toilet< sign on it.  
One like those you saw in restaurants.  
  
 While he tried to pee into the toilet instead of everywhere else, he wondered if Jaebum had stolen that sign from a restaurant. The thought made him giggle.  
  
When he was done and mostly satisfied with how well he’d done, he was about to walk back down to Mark and the others, when another door caught his attention. It was closed, but it was the only room with light shining through the gap on the bottom of the door.  
Youngjae didn’t know why, but he found himself walking closer, tip-toeing carefully. Not that anyone would have been there to see him.  
  
No voices came out of the room. The only noise he could hear was his stomach rumbling, struggling with all the alcohol in it.  
He wondered if Jaebum was in that room.  
He would have liked a little bit of alone time with him right now and his mind already showed him pictures of the two of them making out drunkenly and lazily while the others kept partying downstairs. Sounded good.  
Youngjae opened the door, something his sober self would never have done.  
  
And.  
No Jaebum.  
  
And before he could start being disappointed, he concentrated on the room and his curiosity was back again. Was this Jaebum’s old room? It didn’t look anything like he had expected it to look. Actually it didn’t look like anything he had expected to find.  
It wasn’t huge, but there was lots of stuff in there.  
The thing that first caught his attention was a big pin-board on the wall, where lots of notes and sketches were pinned down and some strings, connecting cards with notes on them. It reminded Youngjae of one of the mystery shows he’d watched when he was younger, where the detective collected all the clues about the case and slowly built a bigger picture on one of these cardboards.  
  
And Youngjae would’ve gone over to take a closer look, but when he looked down, he saw rows of pictures lying on the floor, carefully placed beside each other, lots of thought behind it.  
And Youngjae got a weird feeling when he saw his own paintings in between them.  
There was the first one he had painted; Jaebum in the swimming pool. A weird nostalgic feeling took over his chest.  
Another one of Jaebum’s face that he had asked for. Specifically just his face.  They were all there.  
But others, too.  
  
In the row that started with the swimming pool picture, there were other interpretations of the same photograph. One drawn only in charcoal, dark and a bit depressing, the black parts so black that there wasn’t much space for details. The next one was an incredibly realistic looking pencil drawing, amazing skills, obviously hours and hours of work in it.  
And the last one was a collage. Made out of black and white and grey cutouts from magazines and newspapers.  
Youngjae looked away. He didn’t know what that feeling in his gut was, but he felt like throwing up. Maybe it was just the alcohol.  
  
He forced himself to look down at the second row, and it was the same concept. His painting on first place, followed by other interpretations of the same photo of Jaebum.  
The third row was the same and there was a pile of more carefully laminated artworks waiting to be lined up and to be categorized.  
Youngjae felt tears forcing themselves out of his eyes. He wiped them away with his sleeve. He was scared of drowning in them in this little room full of things he didn’t understand.

He then walked over to the only desk in the room, with lots of papers on it, a bunch of books, and a laptop.  
His vision was blurry, but he forced himself to look at everything anyway. When he took a book in his hand it took him a moment to read the words on it.  
  
“Writing Autobiographies- the basics.”  
Then another one: “Telling your story- Where to begin”  
And the one he held in his hands the longest: “Talking about mental illness.”  
  
Youngjae’s head was spinning, his thoughts attacking his conscience and he had no idea why, but his tears stopped coming.  
Without looking back, he walked out of the room. He wanted to speak to Jaebum right now. Needed to speak to him. Needed to get answers and needed to give him answers. If he could only tell Jaebum that he was so hopelessly in love with him…  
Maybe it would change something.  
  
He stumbled down the stairs and searched for Jaebum and he found him without having to ask anybody. He was at the end of the hallway and there was this guy with him. Older than Jaebum. A little bit taller than Jaebum.  
And the way he pressed him against the wall made Youngjae’s stomach turn. At the first glance he thought the guy was threatening Jaebum and he wanted to go over there and make him stop. Then the guy leant down to Jaebum’s neck and started to suck on it. Jaebum’s hands found their way to the guy’s belt and Youngjae could see that his eyes were closed. A raspy moan leaving his lips.  
That was the moment Youngjae looked away.

  
His stomach let him know that he needed to get out of there in the next five minutes, if he didn’t want to throw up right there and then. So without looking at Jaebum’s hand another time to see if they were maybe just gonna stop there, he turned around, the sick feeling in his gut becoming a priority.  
Rushing through the hallway, nobody even flinched at the way he walked through the house, the way he stumbled and panted heavily, trying his best to keep the beer inside of him until he was outside.  
  
And he made it.  
When Youngjae opened the glass door to the backyard a wall of fresh air hit him and he took a few deep breaths before he closed it behind himself.  
The music turned to a dull and chaotic mass behind that door, the night nearly uncomfortably calm in contrast.

Then he threw up all over Jaebum’s nicely trimmed lawn.  
Until there was nothing left inside of him.  
  
Sometimes you need to get rid of everything in your system. Clean out your body, get all the tears out and then- while you’re at it -get all the food and alcohol out and Youngjae just wished he could get that ugly feeling in his gut out just as easily.  
But it stayed.  
That weird feeling of betrayal without really knowing how he was betrayed exactly. That feeling of being lied to, when nothing was even said. It was confusing to his drunken head. There was a distinct feeling of guilt, even though he had no clue what he had done wrong.  
  
 A few cicadas sang their secretive songs and the sounds of bypassing cars were the only thing that reminded him that he was still in a city. Even if at the very edge of it.  
  
Youngjae stood in front of a big, empty swimming pool.  
The tiles were dirty and there were leaves and a few small branches lying on the bottom of it. It looked like it hadn’t been used in years.  
  
He stumbled a bit, when he climbed down the little ladder and was glad to have solid ground beneath his feet again, when he walked through the empty pool.  
It was a little disappointing, that view. No plants growing out of the ground, no colorful flowers, not even sunlight and no nineties road movie Jaebum sitting in it. Just a bunch of dead leaves and dirt.  
  
Why. Why did it matter?  
The sun was nearly gone now. It was burning red in the sky, her last big stage for that day, until a new one began and Youngjae smiled a little.  
Colors everywhere.  
  
If Jaebum sometimes sat in that pool and watched the sun go down like this?  
Why did it matter? It shouldn’t matter.  
Youngjae didn’t even have his sketchbook with him.  
  
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there. His plaid shirt was clinging around him, but he was still freezing. Youngjae was tired and wanted to get back in and tell his friends he’d go home. But that pool had something comforting, just a little bit deeper in the earth than everyone else and safe from their glances.  
Sleep was already trying to reach for him, when he heard the door getting opened. The music streamed out of it and got drowned out the next moment, when the door was closed again.

  
♥  
  
  
“Youngjae?” Jaebum’s voice called out.  He didn’t answer. The lump in his throat was back.  
Then he saw his dark figure appearing on the edge of the pool and Jaebum’s voice got softer.  
  
“Mark told me you’re out here.”  
  
“I’m not,” Youngjae mumbled.  
  
Jaebum climbed down the ladder and walked towards him. Youngjae didn’t look up.  
He sat down beside him and lit a cigarette. Youngjae didn’t look at him; he just stared at the wall of the pool in front of him.

  
Jaebum wasn’t a talker. He could talk, yes, when he was confident in the topic and when he knew that his words brought something new to the conversation, but he didn’t say words just because they sounded nice.  
It also felt like he avoided personal topics, tried maneuvering around background stories and stayed in the safe haven of fun facts and small talk.  
  
Youngjae -he had the tendency to say when something felt off, to point it out when something annoyed him, even if his fingers shook and his voice trembled while doing so. It was part of his personality and even if he tried, he couldn’t hold back the words from streaming out into the world sometimes.  
It’s even harder to control when you’re drunk and just threw up over your just-a-friend’s lawn.  
  
So that’s what happened when Jaebum was sitting beside him in the empty pool and waited for him to break the silence.  
Youngjae was tapping his foot nervously and there were all kinds of emotions acting up inside his chest and he had no idea which of them was to come out if he opened his mouth, but he did anyway. He didn’t know what else to do.  
  
He said, “Can I ask you something?”  
  
“Sure,” Jaebum sighed, without looking up to him. His head was leaning back against the tiles and he looked up at the sky, as if it knew all the answers to their questions.  
  
“Do you like me?”  
  
“Of course I do, silly.” Jaebum smiled a tired smile. Not at Youngjae, but up to the sky.  
  
“Mhh…” Youngjae hummed. “Do you feel like you can talk to me?”

Jaebum finally turned his head and looked at Youngjae.  
  
“I guess,” He said, “I don’t really talk to anyone to be honest.”  
  
Youngjae took all of his courage and leant onto Jaebum’s shoulder. He assumed the anger had left him with all the beer. He nearly expected Jaebum to politely pull away from him or even not so politely, but when he stayed in place Youngjae’s chest felt warm.  
 Was it so wrong to hope a little?  
He felt Jaebum shift until they were as comfortable as you could get on the cold bottom of a dirty pool.  
Youngjae’s heart rebelled in his chest and he had to close his eyes to deal with the glimmering colors behind his eyelids. He was sobering up already, but having Jaebum this close and this peaceful against his body made him feel tipsy again.  
He wanted to stay this close to him forever.  
Wanted to feel his warm body against his forever.  
  
 “So, would you answer if I asked you questions?” Youngjae dared to say.  
  
“I guess, yeah,” Jaebum mumbled, “I mean what else can I do, you’re not one to give up on an answer.”  
  
“Very true.” Youngjae tried to smile a little, but it didn’t really work. Then he took a deep breath.  
  
“And you’re gonna tell the truth?”  
  
“Of course,” Jaebum huffed, “Do you think I’m a liar?”  
  
“Mhh, let me decide when I hear your answers.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Another silence. Youngjae didn’t know what he was doing, but he was doing something and that was good. Or it ruined everything he and Jaebum had. He wasn’t sure.  
  
“What are you doing with all those paintings?” Youngjae’s voice was barely a whisper. But he knew Jaebum had heard him by the way his shoulder tensed.

He took his time with his answer and Youngjae nearly wanted to ask again, but then he finally started talking.  
  
“It’s a project I’m working on…” he sighed, “it’s probably never getting together, but it was worth a try… and I wanted to tell you about it- I mean, of course I would have told you about it before it got serious but-“  
  
“Jaebum…” Youngjae took his head off Jaebum’s shoulder and readjusted his body so he was sitting with crossed legs, looking at Jaebum.  
  
“What kind of project?” It was so hard not to lull. To make his words sound like words.  
  
“A book.” Jaebum huffed, a sarcastic smile on his face, as if it was a joke.  
  
A book.  
  
“About what?” Youngjae asked.  
  
Another silence. Jaebum looked like he struggled with the words to choose.  
  
“A book about me. And about depression, I guess. About my father I guess… about life, probably… really, I wish I knew.”

“You never told me about any of that…” Youngjae whispered.  
  
“You never asked,” Jaebum joked.  
  
Only.  
It wasn’t a joke.  
He was right.  
Youngjae never asked, because he had been scared shitless of the answers.

There was that faint feeling of guilt again, eating at Youngjae from the inside and making his stomach turn.  
  
Youngjae never asked and maybe by ignoring the signs, taking the dark colors out of his paintings, he took Jaebum’s voice away, too.  
Or maybe his drunken brain just didn’t make any sense.  
  
 “What am I supposed to think, Jaebum?”  
   
Suddenly the feelings came streaming back in, as if someone had turned on the faucet and now they were flowing into the pool and they whirled Youngjae around and he didn’t even notice that he was crying, when he started talking again.  
  
 “You come into my life just like that and you make me fall in love with you just like that and you make me feel special by buying my art, but you don’t tell me why and then you invite me to this stupid party, just so I can watch you fool around with someone else?”  
  
 The sobs were the only thing that came out of his throat now and they sounded like he was drowning and Jaebum just looked at him as if he had been punched in the face.  
  
 “Why do you do that, Jaebum?” Youngjae wiped his tears away with his sleeve, but they just kept coming. “Why do you do this to me?”

 “I didn’t….I didn’t think it would hurt you…” Jaebum whispered. “I didn’t know you felt that way…”  
  
“Of course you did…don’t lie to me again.”  
  
Youngjae felt pathetic. The way he wrapped his arms around his knees and the way he couldn’t stop crying. The way he waited for Jaebum to just leave and the way he didn’t.  
He started shivering, because the night was cold and merciless and then Jaebum wrapped his arms around him and pulled Youngjae closer, so he could warm him up. It just made Youngjae cry more.  
They sat there for a while.

“I was scared, y’know,” Jaebum finally said. “I was so scared of you.”  
  
“What?” Youngjae mumbled into his knees.  
  
“I saw how you looked at me…and it scared me,” Jaebum said, “it still scares me a bit.”  
  
“You’re not making any sense right now…”

“Nobody looks at me like that, you know… nobody paints me like that.”

Youngjae looked up. He didn’t understand what Jaebum was telling him, but he understood that it was important, so he looked at him.  
  
“You make me so weak and I’m not sure if I like it…”

“What are you telling me right now?” Youngjae asked.  
  
“I’m telling you I don’t know what I’m doing, but I don’t want to lose you…and I don’t want to hurt you…I want to be with you.”  
  
“As... more than friends?” Youngjae’s voice was shaky.  
  
“I think so, yeah,” Jaebum smiled a thin smile,  “but you’ll need to be patient with me.”  
  
He pulled Youngjae back against his body and started rubbing comforting circles on his back.  
  
“We can go in if you want to…”

  
♥

  
The party had thinned out a lot; most of the people had gone home or fallen asleep somewhere in the house. Jaebum showed him his old room- not the work room- and it was much more comfortable.  
He gave Youngjae a brand new toothbrush and Youngjae was glad to get rid of that foul taste in his mouth.  
Jaebum was laying on his bed, on his belly, a book in his hand, when Youngjae walked back into his room.  
  
Youngjae noticed the copy of the book, because he had the same one lying around at his apartment.  
The sorrows of Van Gogh.  
He had to smile.  
Youngjae had read it for Van Gogh, but he was sure Jaebum read it for the sorrows.  
  
“Can I borrow a shirt?” He asked and Jaebum laid the book aside, looking at Youngjae and nodding. Then he walked over to his wardrobe and got him a big black shirt and threw it at him. Youngjae got out of his disgusting clothes and into the shirt. He didn’t care that he was only in his boxers; he was too tired to get embarrassed about changing in front of Jaebum.  
It was the best feeling to cuddle himself into his bed and to wait for him to join him.  
 Jaebum.  
 The coolest guy and host of the party, who apparently didn’t give a shit about anyone else right now. He was there with Youngjae and he climbed into bed with him and he was so warm.  
Youngjae wrapped his limps around him and pulled him close to himself.  
  
“What did you want to use the paintings for?”  Youngjae wondered when he had made himself comfortable in Jaebum’s arms.  
  
“I… I just thought it would be interesting to see how -people see me. Different people, y’know.” He added, as if to make sure he didn’t erase that fact again.  
“And how they’d capture my illness. If they see it or not and how they see it.”

  
“Well shit,” Youngjae said, “I definitely failed that test then.”  
  
“No,” Jaebum said quickly, “I told you yours were my favorite-“he kept silent for a while and then, while playing with a lock of Youngjae’s hair, he continued.  
“The others just painted me in black and white and all sad and boring… just the way I am, I guess… but you…”  
  
“You’re not black and whi-“ Youngjae wanted to say, but Jaebum kept talking, too caught up in his message.  
  
“Your drawings made me look good… interesting and alive and important…”  
  
“Because you are …”  
  
Jaebum smiled.

“That’s why they’re my favorite.”

Youngjae couldn’t help it and he didn’t care how tired he was and that sleep tried reaching for him again.  
He leant up and he looked at Jaebum.  
“I love you,” he said. It made him feel so free, like he could fly just by saying it again and again.  
  
It happened automatically, as if they had done it a thousand times.  Youngjae closed his eyes and the next thing he felt were Jaebum’s lips on his. A careful hand on his waist.  
A bunch of tingles exploded in his stomach and his heart hammered so loud he was afraid Jaebum could hear it.  
He tasted like mint and his lips tugged on Youngjae’s. There were little fireworks of colors exploding behind Youngjae’s eyelids.  
  
The kiss wasn’t rushed; it was steady and Youngjae’s body calmed down a little, adjusted to the feeling of Jaebum’s warm hand on his waist, holding him and playing with his lips like he wanted to draw a secret out of them.  
The warmth of Jaebum’s tongue brushing against his own.

And when Youngjae held his face in his hands, he felt so fragile between them, but Youngjae knew that this was just a part of him. Jaebum was so much more than just a painting.  
 There were so many colors locked up inside him and Youngjae felt like he started to see the first few of them. And from what he could see they were beautiful.  
And they tasted beautiful, too.  
His heart raced and he wanted to melt into Jaebum’s touch and that one held him when his intoxicated body got weak and trembled a little.  
  
Jaebum had been so unapproachable to him and he had felt like a mystery and Youngjae had figured that that was what made him so attractive. That his coolness was what interested Youngjae and that his aesthetic was the main source of inspiration for him.  
While he kissed him in his old childhood bed and while the music was nearly gone and even the last drunk person in the house had fallen asleep, Jaebum wasn’t unapproachable anymore. And it didn’t feel like kissing a character out of some YA movie. No mystery.  
 Jaebum didn’t need any of those things to make Youngjae feel the way he felt.  
  
He didn’t feel out of reach anymore- he just felt like the most fragile and flawed thing in the world.  
 A human being.  
And it was so much more exciting to be in love with a human being. Youngjae didn’t need the coolness to be in love with Jaebum.  
 He had never just been in love with the mystery.

“Let’s sleep,” Jaebum said when he saw how much trouble Youngjae had to keep his eyes open.  
  
“Mmhm,” he hummed, “you’re gonna tell me about your illness and everything, right?”  
  
“I will.”  
  
“I can help you with your book, too, you know?”  
  
“Okay,” Jaebum whispered and even though Youngjae’s eyes were closed he could hear him smiling and he cuddled closer to him. Jaebum’s arms wrapped around him like the warmest colors.  
And Youngjae heard him say two more words, before he drifted into his dreams.  
  
“Thank you.” 

♥  
  
  
They met in a park this time.  
Wildflowers were blooming around a little man-made lake and Youngjae nearly didn’t see Jaebum coming, because he was so in love with the colors. A little duck family swam in the lake and a little old bench watched them on the side. Truly a pretty place, but the next huge street was just behind a wall of trees and the soundtrack of the city didn’t fit this idyll.  
Youngjae had suggested this place. Had wondered if Jaebum would like it.  
  
“Hey,” Jaebum said, “sorry I’m late.”  
  
“Did you have an accident again?”  
  
“No, I just took a nap and overheard my alarm.”  
 A hint of a smile.  
Youngjae’s heart was beating faster. It was rare to see Jaebum smile, but Youngjae was convinced his smiles were worth waiting for.  
They sat down on that little bench and for a moment he feared it wouldn’t endure their weight, but it just creaked a little bit.  
  
“You like places like this?” Jaebum looked around. He looked like an intruder in his dark clothes and piercings. Youngjae had to smile. Maybe he’d draw that picture later.  
  
“Yeah… don’t you think it’s pretty?”  
  
“I guess.” Jaebum nodded. “You drew the picture?”  
  
“Of course,” Youngjae said, “but I warned you, I’m bad at this.”  
  
“Yeah sure.” Jaebum rolled his eyes.  
  
Then he showed him and again his heart was racing while he watched Jaebum scan the painting with his eyes.  
  
“Oh yeah you’re so bad at this,” he said. “And Dali was uncreative and Davinci was bad at proportions…”  
  
Youngjae had to laugh.  
  
“This is good. You did well,” Jaebum said. “Do you like drawing for me?”  
  
“A lot…” Youngjae swallowed. The noises of the cars sounded dull and the wildflowers around him melted to a single colorful mass somewhere behind Jaebum.  
 Who was completely clear.  
  
“Your drawings are my favorite,” he said and his eyes were looking him all over. Youngjae’s hands were sweating.  
  
“I love you,” Youngjae answered.

Then they kissed. In public. Just like that.  
Youngjae’s heart raced and thumped and thundered and he didn’t want to startle the little ducklings in the lake with the noise. But they didn’t seem to care and Youngjae wouldn’t have stopped kissing Jaebum anyway.  
He had waited so long for this to happen and he never truly believed he would ever get so lucky.  
  
The thought let his kiss get more demanding and he even dared to nibble on Jaebum’s lip, who smiled into the kiss. Youngjae was afraid he’d pull away and say something to make fun of him, but Jaebum didn’t.  
He just kept kissing him as if it was the only thing he really wanted to do with his day. And Youngjae was okay with that; he didn’t have any other plans anyway. And if he had had plans, he would just have to cancel them all. Naturally. That’s just what you do, when the butterflies in your stomach keep partying and your heart is running a marathon.  
  
He wasn’t sure how long they sat there like that, glued together on that little bench and whenever Youngjae found the strength to form a thought, he wondered if time had maybe stopped completely.  
 Now and then he had trouble to hold back upcoming waves of passion and remembered that they were in a public place after all.  
But at some point Jaebum pulled away and there it was: a smile that looked careful but not shy, cheeky but not overly confident.  
 A smile asking for a next time.  
 Less than a promise, but definitely a chance.  
  
The sun was already setting, when they stood up and everything in Youngjae whined at the thought of going back home.  
He tried to make it sounds by the way, when he asked, “What are you going to do with the rest of your day?”  
  
“I was wondering if I could come home with you,” Jaebum said.

What a silly question. **  
  
**

**Author's Note:**

> Okay listen. I am not satisfied with this. I actually kinda hate it, but I'm thinking about writing a second chapter or something like that, so tell me if you'd like that. I can't promise anything though!!  
> Anyway, don't be too harsh with this, it's definitely not my favorite work... :P


End file.
